How the entire central committee of the Patriotic Front party, the president of the country inclusive would settle for Miles Sampa among the thirty one candidates that had applied for the Lusaka city mayoral adoption is quite bemusing as the man is hungry, politically unstable and probably worse that late veteran politicians Daniel Munkombwe.

I am well aware the family of veteran politician Daniel Munkombwe is still mourning him, and mentioning his name in comparison to former Matero Member of Parliament and aspiring Lusaka City Mayoral candidate Miles Sampa may not sit well with them but reality is this is closest we get to what the latter is or has become politically- hungry, politically unstable and worse than the former.

Well it can not be argued that Miles was a good parliamentarian under late 5th president Micheal Sata (2011-2015), probably the best of them all but his politics since Sata died have exposed him as a hungry man, an opportunist, a politically unstable man whose calculations are rather more emotional than logical.

-First was Sampa’s miscalculation that he was politically popular within the Patriotic Front to vie for the then vacant position of party president when he was a mere deputy minister, under the advise of Dr Guy Scott and the Cartel that included Wynter Kabimba and former media mogul Fred Mmembe.

Secondly, he accepted a second convention after a legal one had been convened at Mulungushi and concluded, being declared winner of a void one held outside the stipulated time frame.

Thirdly, he feigned reconciliation with the Edgar Lungu led group prior to the 2015 Presidential elections while having registered a political party of his own under Davies Chanda’s name, a party he denied being his when he was appointed as deputy commerce minister under president Edgar Lungu only to claim it after resigning from the Patriotic Front prior to the 2016 elections, launching it and getting in a temporal alliance with the United Party for National Development when it seemed they would win the 2016 elections.

Fourth, Miles had bet his house in Matero expressing certainty that the Patriotic Front would lose Matero Constituency to the Democratic Front/UPND alliance only to change when they lost the seat to the former.

Fifth, just when elections were over and the UPND had petitioned the results at the Constitutional Court and Miles appeared on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation Tv news declaring the elections as free and fair, advising the UPND to accept them without a hearing.

And finally, when we all thought Miles’s advise to the UPND was out of maturity, patriotism and a quest for peace after the controversial elections, and he appeared once more on Tv, acknowledging his mistakes, apologizing and asking for re-admittance to the party and now he even vouched for his adoption as mayoral candidate under the Patriotic Front.

What late Daniel Munkombwe, popularly known as “chief of politics of the belly” did in over Fifty years, jostling from one party to another (from ANC to UNIP then MMD, to UPND back to MMD, then PF and again back to UPND in 2015). Miles Sampa has outdone him and done it in only two years (2016-2018) and inherited his title with his political maneuvers.

The people of the great city of Lusaka need a stable man and not Miles Sampa’s kind who are unstable and hungry, and are willing to jump from party to party when they are hungry and it suits them. They will do well to teach the Patriotic Front a lesson and that they can not impose political prostitutes on them when there were morally upright candidates vying for the position just as the people of Chilanga did to the UPND during last month’s parliamentary elections. At least they are left with varied choices from other parties that have adopted political rookies in Kangwa Chileshe (UPND), Mukubesa Mundia (APC) and Saboi Imboela (NDC) to mention a few.

We can do better and save our country from recycled politicians like Miles Sampa whose quest is to have political employment at all costs.

Mbanga, Irvine Ilukui.
Fayetteville, Arkansas.
United States of America